17 Facts About Medical sociology

Medical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledge and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural effects of medical practice.

Medical sociology sociologists are interested in the qualitative experiences of patients, often working at the boundaries of public health, social work, demography and gerontology to explore phenomena at the intersection of the social and clinical sciences.

Early work in medical sociology was conducted by Lawrence J Henderson whose theoretical interests in the work of Vilfredo Pareto inspired Talcott Parsons interests in sociological systems theory.

Field of medical sociology is usually taught as part of a wider sociology, clinical psychology or health studies degree course, or on dedicated master's degree courses where it is sometimes combined with the study of medical ethics and bioethics.

Samuel W Bloom argues that the study of medical sociology has a long history but tended to be done as one of advocacy in response to social events rather than a field of study.

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Medical sociology cites the 1842 publication of the sanitary conditions of the labouring population of Great Britain as a good example of such research.

Bloom argues the development of medical sociology is linked to the development of sociology within American universities.

Medical sociology argues that the 1865 creation of the American Social Science Association was a key event in this development.

Study of the social construction of illness within medical sociology can be traced to Talcott Parsons notion of the sick role.

Medical sociology argued that norms and deviant behaviour are partly the result of the definitions applied by others.

Medical sociology paternalism is the perspective that doctors want what is best for the patient and must take decisions on behalf of the patient because the patient is not competent to make their own decisions.

Strauss feared that if medical sociology started to adopt the goals expected by medicine it risked losing its focus on analysing society.

Rosenfeld argues that the study of Medical sociology focused solely on making recommendations for medicine has limited use for theory building and its findings cease to apply in different social situations.

Medical sociology argues that the tendency to view certain theories such as the scientific method as the basis for all knowledge, and conversely the tendency to view all knowledge as associated with some activity both risk undermining the field of medical sociology.

Peter Conrad notes that medical anthropology studies some of the same phenomena as medical sociology but argues that medical anthropology has different origins, originally studying medicine within non-western cultures and using different methodologies.

Medical sociology argues that there was some convergence between the disciplines, as medical sociology started to adopt some of the methodologies of anthropology such as qualitative research and began to focus more on the patient, and medical anthropology started to focus on western medicine.

Medical sociology argued that more interdisciplinary communication could improve both disciplines.